Just in time for door-to-door Halloween festivities (i.e. that one night every year when millions of U.S. children venture to the doorfronts of strangers in quest of diabetes-inducing confections), consumer background checking company BeenVerified.com has released a mobile app to help consumers locate registered sex offenders in their areas.

TechCrunch reader Steve Manuel claims to have found a workaround to Firesheep, the controversial Firefox extension that allows anyone on an insecure open Wifi network to access user login info for almost every single social network in existence.

The iPad is finding its way into more and more classrooms because of the growing number of educational apps that can be used with students. Some of the best ones are the new breed of iPad book apps. These apps make it great to use an iPad for reading books in class. Here are 10 of the best.

WIDE World is a distance learning initiative from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It offers educators high-quality, coaching-based professional development at a distance, with a focus on teaching for understanding, thinking, assessment, and the integration of new technologies

I’ve shown this research to educators in conference sessions and workshops across the U.S. I can guarantee a huge laugh from the audience by saying that business considers “one support person for every 60 PCs” just barely adequate. I’ve listened as tech coordinators share their stories – increasing number of computers to support, constantly increasing complexity, and increasing expectations for instant, interconnected systems. And most of the time, a decreasing budget.

Here are 20 basic items that every geek should be able to do (items 15 – 20 are for the advanced geeks). How many items can you check off this list? (Hint: If you read my TechRepublic post 10 things every geek should know, you'll have an advantage.) The Geekend blog features this gallery in list format.

TechRepublic has previously talked about some of the things you can do to increase your geek cred. Naturally, there are also some things that can hurt your geek cred. In fact, we’ve put together a list of 10 of the worst transgressions for any geek. Doing any one of these will put your geek credentials at risk. Do two of them and your geek card immediately gets revoked.

With social media use becoming more mainstream, principals, teachers, parent volunteers, and other adults affiliated with public schools are frequently using social media for networking and communication purposes. But while social media give school leaders an opportunity to interact with parents and other constituents on a more informal and interactive basis, don’t let the informal tone fool you.